


what it wants

by cara1317



Series: a voice that keeps calling me home [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Homesickness, Klangst Week 2017, Langst, M/M, Post-Canon, Season 2 spoilers, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, klangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 23:41:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10501899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cara1317/pseuds/cara1317
Summary: Was this his home? It didn't feel like home. Earth was home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> You guys are so sweet to leave behind so many comments (and kudos)! It's too bad for Lance that ~~writing langst is so fun~~ you all asked for more langst -- so here we are!
> 
> Also, I've been obsessively listening to Black Bear, especially ["Wants What It Wants"](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GSNv9tvyCPk) (aka the song I listened to while writing this)

He imagined this was what it was like to be a black hole. Void of feeling, just... numb.

He didn't know how long he'd been lying there, only that the voices had subsided, or at least whispering too quiet for even his own mind to hear. He watched the shadows stretch and lengthen across his ceiling, an artificial shifting he'd asked Coran to program in his room. It reminded him of home, wherever that was now.

Was this his home? It didn't feel like home. Earth was home. Warm sand under your toes, the sharp tang of salt in the air, hot air pushed past your cheeks by the constant whirring of fans in every room. Did he still have a home back on Earth? His family had probably received news from the Garrison. They'd been gone for months now, long enough that the Garrison probably wasn't looking for them anymore, if they had at all. It was a well known fact that Garrison recruits often disappeared. He'd always assumed that it was people who chickened out from the program, although Pidge had insisted that some snuck out and paid the price. He'd never bothered asking what they meant by that.

The palm fronds on the ceiling swayed in a nonexistent breeze, and Lance closed his eyes. He was tired. Tired from the battles, the stress he saw etched across the others' faces, the fact that for all his bluster and bravado, he never quite fit in. He was tired of trying so hard to prove himself, to keep his cheerful front up, to keep himself together.

_"Just stop complaining! It's all you ever do!"_

Keith's words ring in his ears.

He doesn't complain that much, does he? Maybe he'd taken it too far, touched a nerve. All he'd been trying to do was lighten the mood. No matter how many jokes he made or how much he tried to reassure the others, saying that it wasn't the worst of their problems, there was a thick tension in the air, a heavy smog that refused to lift. It was smothering all of them, but Keith especially. After all, he had been the closest one to Shiro.

He thinks back to their earlier conversation.

_"We need to figure out our strategy. If we can hack into the security base on Xalifer, we could see if they know where Shiro is, if they somehow took him."_

_"What if they didn't? I hate to say it, Keith, but we can't risk that much just for some intel that may or may not be there."_

_Keith had snapped his gaze to Pidge. "You'd risk just as much for your family! You have, actually. Don't tell me you weren't the one that hacked into that abandoned Galra ship we found last time."_

_Pidge looked away._

_It was true. An alarm had been triggered and they'd been forced to fight their way out, alerting the Galra to the fact that they'd been stealing from their quintessence stores. They had barely made it out, and Hunk had gotten hit._

_Still, Keith had no right to point fingers like that. Even though the Galra realized that they were now down at least ten dozen units in various bases, and had doubled security on all vaults of quintessence, it wasn't for nothing. They still had other plans. Pidge had been able to download a few blueprints of plans that detailed Galran battle formations, and they could use that to their advantage. Nevertheless, Pidge had been inconsolable, crying for several hours and refusing to leave the cryopod bay until Hunk had tumbled out. Despite Hunk's reassurances, Lance knew that Pidge still felt guilty._

_"Hey, leave off. You've been working us day and night with extra training sequences and constant strategy meetings. Give us a break for a couple vargas!"_

_"I'm just trying to make sure we're ready for whatever gets thrown at us next!"_

_"Oh yeah? Like that 'simulation' where you thought it'd be a great idea to use real knives and forget to tell us we might need armor?!"_

_"You never know when we'll be attacked!"_

_"Fine! What about telling us the next time you decide to put killer robots in our rooms?"_

_"They're training droids! And you do know that you weren't actually supposed to fight it, you were supposed to stop it by saying 'end sequence,' right?"_

_Lance had jabbed his spork in Keith's direction. "How was I supposed to know I wasn't 'actually supposed to fight it,' you didn't tell me!"_

_"That's the point of a surprise training sequence! It's not a surprise if I tell you!"_

_"Well, maybe we don't need surprise training sequences! You already wake us up at crazy hours to train!"_

_Keith slammed his hands on the table. "Just stop complaining! It's all you ever do!"_

Lance realizes he's gritting his teeth, and forces himself to relax. Draws in a breath. Lets it out slowly.

Sometimes, if he breathes long enough like this, he feels like the ocean. Deep, unending, as old as time. Peaceful, like he can weather the storm.

His chest aches, not from the various scrapes and bruises, but deeper, between his ribs and above his lungs. He reaches up and presses a hand against his heart, feeling the chill of his fingers through his shirt. He waits to feel the steady thump of his heart under his hand, waits to remember that he's still alive, still living. Thoughts of his family drift through his mind's eye; he tries to remember the sound of their voices, the bursting laughter that always came from his younger siblings when he tickled their feet, the smell of rice and quesadillas and chicken and his mom's special soup. They flicker there in his memories, just out of reach, blurred by time and the tears that threaten in his eyes. He turns on his side and pulls the covers up close.

Not for the first time, Lance cries himself to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Fluff... or more angst? Hmm... Anyone else thinking I should put the "k" in klangst now?


End file.
